This invention belongs to the technical field of sealing systems intended to cover gaps or grooves in outer surfaces of vehicles in the aeronautical sector, and more particularly to the field of sealing systems intended to cover gaps existing between the fuselage and the elevator of an aircraft with an orientable horizontal stabilizer.
In the large majority of aircraft there exists a gap or groove between the elevator of each horizontal stabilizer and the fuselage. This groove is necessary for permitting the movements made by the elevator in different maneuvers of the aircraft such as ascent or descent.
On the other hand, during cruise conditions, which represent the major part of the operating time of an aircraft, the elevator does not move, being at rest in the plane of the horizontal stabilizer.
During these cruise conditions, owing to the incidence of the airflow on the groove, certain loads are created which increase the aerodynamic resistance, occasioning various inefficiencies, among others an increase in fuel consumption.
So, in order to avoid this increase in aerodynamic resistance created by the airflow, it would be desirable to seal the gap existing between the elevator and the fuselage during cruise conditions in which the elevator remains at rest in the plane of the horizontal stabilizer. During maneuvers in which movements of the elevator take place, the groove varies in size and shape, but while those maneuvers are taking place this groove does not need to be sealed since the maneuvers account for a minimal operating time of the aircraft and the impact of the increase in aerodynamic resistance at these moments is negligible.
The complexity of the situation increases when the horizontal stabilizers in which the elevators are located are orientable, in other words, their position can be varied by inclining them in order to achieve stability by means of centering the forces acting on the aircraft, since for the correct movement of the stabilizers here exist some additional gaps between the elevators and the fuselage, these gaps being larger than the above and which therefore increase the aerodynamic resistance more.
So far, in the prior art, solutions have been known for sealing the gap existing between the fuselage and the elevator in aircraft with a fixed horizontal stabilizer, but not for sealing the gap in aircraft with an orientable horizontal stabilizer, the gap being even greater than in the previous case, which meant that the increase in the aerodynamic resistance owing to the gap and the inefficiencies caused by it, revealed in a higher fuel consumption and increased environmental impact, had to be accepted.
A system was therefore desirable which would solve the problems existing in the state of the art.